With UC San Diego’s expansion, Khosla’s decisiveness, skill with people could bode well for raising more funds

Several of those professors, particularly neuroscientist Ralph Greenspan, have helped Khosla get off to a fast start. Greenspan was part of a small group of researchers who wrote a landmark paper saying the path to understanding the brain involves inventing sensors and imagers that will give scientists their first real look at how large numbers of neurons communicate. The idea was picked up by the Obama administration.

The president adopted the plan so rapidly that the White House had to call Khosla on his cellphone to make sure he would make it to Washington in time for the news conference. Khosla met Greenspan and Spitzer in the hotel bar to draft preliminary plans for the brain institute.

Those professors flew home and quickly drummed up backing from almost every area of the faculty, typically not an easy feat. “Ralph and Nick were behind this,” Khosla said. Greenspan points back at Khosla: “The chancellor is an activist, he wants to get things done. He’s decisive.”

Spitzer agrees, citing the chancellor’s swift decision to upgrade the chemistry and biology labs. “He didn’t need to put together a committee to study whether it should be done,” Spitzer said.

Such remarks represent a change in tone at UC San Diego. Former chancellor Marye Anne Fox, a renowned chemist, is a comparatively reserved person who sometimes fought with the faculty over money and governance matters. Khosla is a gregarious man who has, to date, avoided lasting clashes with professors. The civility stems in part from Khosla’s focus on raising money.

“If he can capture the imagination of donors and get us on a roll, we’ll be able to do a lot of things,” said seismologist Guy Masters, chairman of the university’s Academic Senate, which has 2,000 members. “He has to get that train rolling.”